Monthly Archives: March 2016

Mechanical engineer Lily Buechler, E17, received an Honorable Mention in the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program. The Goldwater Scholarship is one of the most prestigious undergraduate awards in the STEM fields.

Assistant Professor Erica Kemmerling writes for The Conversation about fabricating physical models to study how cardiovascular devices affect blood flow. Now 3D printing technology is advanced enough to build realistic models of human blood vessels, and pulsatile-flow pumps can drive flow through these vessels to mimic the heart’s pumping. Since the vessel models are synthetic, there are no ethical issues associated with damaging them to take flow measurements.

Assistant Professor Ayse Astaekin received a Young Scholar Award from the Turkish American Scientists and Scholars Association (TASSA). She will present a lecture and receive the award at the annual TASSA conference held April 2-3, 2016 at the University of Chicago.

Professor Dan Kuchma discussed offshore installations and siting as part of the 2016 Wind Energy Research Workshop, sponsored by National Science Foundation, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Tufts University, and UMass Lowell which was held March 15-17.

Professor of the Practice Brian Tracey (ECE) was awarded $200,000 by the Department of Homeland Security in collaboration with American Science and Engineering. The award will support research in developing novel X-ray Compton Scatter tomography systems for airport luggage screening with the goal of creating affordable, next-generation systems that improve the safety of airline travel.

A central challenge to the development of protein-based therapeutics is the inefficiency of delivering proteins across the cell membrane. Assistant Professor Qiaobing Xu is the co-author on a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that demonstrated delivery of genome-editing proteins into cultured human cells with 70% efficacy comparable with or exceeding other commercially available systems. Xu and Ming Wang, postdoctoral scholar and first author, and collaborators also demonstrated that these lipids are effective for functional protein delivery for murine gene recombination in vivo. Xu’s lab will now pursue studies to better assess toxicity.

Engineered nanoparticles could improve oil and gas recovery by acting as contrast agents to detect, image, or modify subsurface conditions of oil and gas reservoirs. However, nanoparticle mobility can be limited by saline solutions and porous materials. Chemistry Views magazine reports on Professor Kurt Pennell and colleagues’ examination of the ability of polymers and surfactants to enhance the mobility of polymer-coated magnetite nanoparticles.

Dr. Jeffrey Griffiths, a professor Tufts University School of Medicine, adjunct professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and former chair of the EPA’s Drinking Water Committee, Science Advisory Board, says when it comes to tracking lead, he says, “there’s no way you can say we’re doing an adequate job.”

The Environmental Protection Agency requires utilities to test water for high levels of lead, but “what’s clear to us now is that the amount of lead testing that’s being done isn’t enough, and the method itself isn’t very good,” Griffiths says. “Things can fall through the cracks when it comes to what the state has the capacity to do.”